03/30/2012

Diana Panton will be singing in Dundas when Junos are announced in Ottawa

If anyone hears a cellphone ringing during Diana Panton’s concert Saturday night, please answer it. The voice on the other end of the line may be calling from Ottawa to inform the Hamilton jazz singer that she has won a Juno award.

That’s the kind of news Panton probably wouldn’t mind hearing, even if it came midsong.

Panton, a French immersion teacher at Westdale Secondary School, is nominated for a Juno award in the jazz vocal category. The winner in Panton’s category will be announced along with 32 others Saturday night at the annual Juno gala dinner in the Ottawa Convention Centre.

Halton police have issued a public warning because an unkown chemical spill was found in the waterway late Thursday.

The Ministry of Environment is investigating.

The spill was discovered at Sherwood Forest Park before 5 p.m Thursday, and the MOE alerted

Halton police said it appears the spill originated from the area of John Lucas Drive, south of Mainway between Appleby Line and Burloak Drive in east Burlington.

What the chemical is has not been determined so police, the MOE and the city are urging residents to stay clear of the waterway and keep pets out of the area too until the ministry is able to determine the nature of the chemical and the possible potential dangers.

A police spokesman said the contaminated area of Sheldon Creek has been cordoned off from John Lucas Drive to Sherwood Forest Park and it is believed that this is the only affected area.

The MOE, city and NEWALTA Environmental Services are actively treating the creek and surrounding embankments and the ministry is investigating where the chemical came from and cause.

Environment Canada issued a special weather statement early this morning, alerting residents in Hamilton, Halton, Haldimand and Niagara of the possibility that 5 cm snow, freezing rain and ice pellets could hit this afternoon and early evening.

The mess is being blamed on a disturbance over the U.S. Midwest that will track just south of Lake Erie late today. An area of precipitation will accompany it, falling primarily as rain in the extreme southwest.Snow and ice pellets are expected from the shores of Lake Huron southeastward to Eastern Lake Erie and northward to Georgian Bay.

The snow and ice pellets will begin this afternoon near Lake Huron and reach Eastern Lake Erie and Western Lake Ontario towards evening

The agency also says, a swath of freezing rain appears likely along the from Grand Bend to the eastern shores of Lake Erie.

It is not known exactly how much snow may fall but the agency says a “swath of 5 cm is possible from southern Lake Huron to the west end of Lake Ontario."

There could be higher amounts, due to the rather heavy nature of the snow at times.

If that isn’t enough to make you stay home, the snow and freezing rain will likely hit rush hour traffic this evening.

Maple Leaf Foods is going to have a distribution centre up and running south of Guelph in Puslinch by 2014.

The company made the announcement Thursday.Maple Leaf cited access to 400 series highways, as well as its new 402,000-square-foot prepared meats facility in Glanbrook.

The new distribution hub is to be commissioned during the first half of next year and will consolidate existing facilities in Burlington, Kitchener and Moncton, adding 80 jobs at in Puslinch Township.Wellington county also issued a statement that it has learned construction is to begin this spring and the new facility is expected to create 80 jobs.

03/29/2012

THOROLD – Service across a bridge operated by a short-line railway has been suspended after it was damaged in a $100,000 fire Niagara police say was started by two young boys.

The boys, age 12 and 14, and both from St. Catharines, have been charged with arson in connection with the fire on the bridge owned by the Trillium Railway Co., which operates on former Canadian National Railway lines west of the Welland Canal.

The bridge runs alongside the canal and is south of Lock 7. Police say it is about 200 metres south of Ormond Street South and Beaverdams Road and crosses over a small channel into the canal.

Police say they were called to the bridge fire at about 5 p.m. Thursday and that witnesses reported seeing two boys running from the blaze. Officers responded and quickly arrested the two boys, who they say are responsible for “a reckless act of arson.”

The Thorold Fire Department attended and extinguished the blaze.

Police say an initial damage has been pegged at $100,000. Service has been suspended until the structural integrity of the bridge can be determined. An investigator from the Office of the Fire Marshal is set to attend the scene Friday.

The boys have been released into the care of their parents under a promise to appear in court at a later date.

Trillium operates the Port Colborne Harbour Railway, which serves 18 customers between Port Colborne and St. Catharines. It began operation in 1997.

Trillium also operates the St. Thomas and Eastern Railway. It serves five customers on a former CN line between St. Thomas and Delhi.

“I would say I’m all for it. If it does cost more to make, that’s crazy. I constantly have to put them in jars and roll them and they’re a pain. I’m happy with it. I’m not going to miss it all. I can’t see any reason to keep it.”

OTTAWAA penny-pinching Conservative government is loosening the reins on Canada’s business community in a budget it says will position the country for unbridled commercial opportunity.

With an eye to the long game after years of politically attractive, minority budgets, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is trimming $5.2 billion in annual federal spending — scrapping the money-losing penny in the process — while raising the age of eligibility for old age security to 67 from 65, starting a decade from now.

Thursday’s federal budget, the seventh since Stephen Harper took office, is the first with an overtly pro-trade and resource development bent and a dearth of voter-friendly goodies.

“We are a moderate, pragmatic government that responds to the facts as they are, and not as we might wish them to be,” Flaherty said in the budget lock-up Thursday.

Emily Gibel eagerly waits in line with her mom for a VIP meet-and-greet with four of her favourite celebrity idols. But she’s not here to see stars from Twilight or Harry Potter. She’s here for Coronation Street and at 14, she’s the youngest fan in the place.

Gibel was one of hundreds of Hamilton-area “Corrie” fans who turned the Redeemer University College auditorium into the Rover’s Return Thursday night. Four stars from the legendary British soap were in town, sharing stories and answering fan questions in Tales from the Street, a month-long, Canada-wide tour event.

The memories flooded back as Bert Sparrock slowly shuffled his way up toward the front of a massive DC-3 airplane Thursday on his 90th birthday.

The Hamilton veteran and his family visited the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum for lunch and a tour of the plane, nearly identical to the one Sparrock flew in almost 70 years agoas a Second World War air force navigator in Burma almost 70 years ago.

“It’s exciting,” he said quietly, his eyes darting around the cockpit. “It certainly brings back all the memories.”

Budget Overview

Measures to buoy up business and pare down government are key to a federal budget that flatlines spending and ratchets down the deficit. Highlights of the Harper Conservatives’ second budget as a majority government:
• Production of the penny ends this fall, saving $11 million a year.
• Business stimulants include $1.1 billion in R&D funding, $500 million for venture capital and $205 million in small business hiring credits.
• Youth job skills training gets $50 million over two years.
• Spending cuts of $5.2 billion by 2014-15, through leaner government operations.
• Elimination of 19,200 federal jobs, 4.8 per cent of the workforce, to cost $900 million.
• Federal employees to make higher pension contributions and, after next election, MPs and senators may pay higher pension share.
• CBC’s $1.15-billion budget cut by 10 per cent over three years.
• Eligibility for Old Age Security rises to 67, beginning in 2023
• Employment Insurance reforms include $482 million over two years for work incentives.
• Deficit of $21.1 billion for 2012-13, projected to disappear by 2015.
• Total spending up 0.11 per cent to $276.1 billion, rising just 2.1 annually after that. Revenue of $255 billion in 2012-13.The Hamilton Spectator